WiT INDIE

Siew Hoon has been covering the travel industry beat in Asia Pacific for decades, starting off as a rookie reporter and going on to lead and launch the region’s key industry media titles. In 2005, she founded WiT (Web in Travel) to tackle how technology was changing travel in Asia Pacific and created a new space in the fast-growing, dynamic region with a dedicated media and events platform.

Over the years, she took WiT to new places, launching editions in Tokyo, Seoul, Middle East and Europe to keep the world’s attention focused on the three pillars of travel, technology and Asia.

Following the acquisition by Northstar Travel Group in 2014, she led the launch of Travel Weekly Asia and M&C Asia and formed the editorial team to execute the entry of Northstar to Asia.

Her work has been recognised by numerous institutions including the Singapore Tourism Board which recognised her as Tourism Entrepreneur of the Year in 2014. The WiT Singapore conference, which remains its tentpole event, has won several awards including Most Innovative Marketing Initiative and Trade Conference Of The Year.

In 2020, WiT Singapore became the first travel conference to go fully hybrid, paving the way for a new model in events.

Other than writing about travel, Siew Hoon is also a published author of titles such as “Around Asia In One Hour: Tales of Condoms, Chillies & Curries”, children’s books such as “Adventures of Habibie The Turtle” and “The Story of Baitong and Boon” and host of “A Life In Travel” podcast.

Branavan Aruljothi is the cluster market lead for Booking.com in Malaysia. Prior to joining Booking.com 8 years ago, he spent most of his career in publishing, working across various industries that include travel, tech, real estate, and entertainment. A Master of Arts graduate in Special Needs, Branavan spends most of his time outside of work volunteering in the inclusion and equity space in Kuala Lumpur.

Iko Putera joined Traveloka in 2017 and now serves as CEO of Transport, Traveloka. He is in charge of overseeing the overall one of Traveloka’s core businesses, Transport, ranging from Flight, Bus & Shuttle, Train, Car Rental, Airport Transfer, and Insurance – covering global markets, including; Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Iko started his tenure at Traveloka by leading the Revenue and Growth Management practice in Traveloka’s Transport business unit. Now, he is responsible for leading Traveloka’s Transport business unit to fulfill its mission of making life better for users by helping them fulfill their aspirations through travel, exploration, and discovery.

Before joining Traveloka, Iko has spent 10 years of his career in several leading consulting firms, where he hones his expertise in commercial and product strategies, corporate finance, and M&A for his world-class clients in the technology, media, and telecommunication industry.

Iko holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Indonesia and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Kim is the Regional Director for Southeast Asia in STR, a premium data benchmarking, analytics and marketplace insights provider for the global hospitality industry. STR is a division of CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP), a leading provider of online real estate marketplaces, information and analytics in the commercial and residential property markets.

Kim is a digital marketing professional with over 20 years’ experience within the hospitality industry. She has assisted independent hotels and hotel chains grow their revenue through their website development, traffic and revenue generation, channel distribution and reputation management combined with market intelligence and data analytics.

Born and bred in Penang island, Dawn has spent over 15 years in roles covering travel, marketing, technology, media and TV broadcasting in San Francisco, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Singapore​. Her foray into travel and tourism began at a digital and content marketing agency handling various airline and tourism clients before joining KAYAK under Booking Holdings. Now, she oversees all things marketing and ecommerce in APAC for Go City®, the global leader in sightseeing passes which includes brands like London Pass ®, New York Pass ®, Paris Pass ™, along with a growing list of 30+ cities globally.

Dawn’s current remit sees her leading B2C customer growth and ecommerce sales focusing on Greater China, North Asia, India and Australia. She joined Go City® six months before the pandemic hit, pioneered customer localization in the company, steered her team through travel recovery and is now leading the APAC customer growth beyond pre-pandemic levels.

She enjoys a good city break, cultural immersions, museum-hopping, deep-sea wreck diving – and of course, local Penang food.

Chee Chong is passionate about the tourism industry, so much so that his 15-year career has been centered around it. He has founded not one, but two start-ups to better meet the needs of the buoyant travel/tourism industry.

He is currently Chief Executive Officer and visionary of GlobalTix, an e-ticketing travel marketplace. Chee Chong was also one of the co-founders of Adventure Glamping, which has pioneered and built the first-ever “glamping” (glamorous camping) resort called Canopi, located in Bintan.

He began his travel industry career with SilkAir, the regional carrier owned by Singapore Airlines and subsequently was seconded to Singapore Airlines.

During his seven-year career with the two carriers, he handled various job functions, including postings to Thailand, Indonesia, and Central Japan which gave him invaluable exposure in the airline industry. In Central Japan, he started many initiatives, including several that continue to today, and the team was recognized with a CEO’s Merit Award for operational excellence.

Chee Chong next joined Sentosa Development Corporation as a member of the management team. He started as the Leisure Operation, Director where he was responsible for ongoing daily operations, from beach operation, attractions to ticketing and subsequently became the General Manager of Mount Faber Leisure Group.

Chee Chong holds a Bachelor of Engineering (2nd Upper) degree from the National University of Singapore.

Yock Song is a tourism, hospitality and technology professional with over 12 years of experience, specialising in Government Relations, Go-to-Market Strategy, Business and Product Development for International Markets.

He is the Co-founder of Questeon, a creators’ enabled, on-demand platform for city discovery, where users can interact with their surroundings, uncover stories, complete tasks and discover new places. Think of the platform as a combination of Pokemon Go + outdoor escape room.

As a Partner and Head of Partnerships & Business Development at Tribe – a travel boutique start-up specialising in creating in-depth, experiential tours of Singapore – Yock Song is instrumental in the strategic direction, innovation and product development of the company. In a short span of time, he led the team to create various popular tour products, including Instawalk series – Singapore’s first and only Instagram tour in Singapore combining guide and influencer on every tour; HawkerWalk series – a tour designed to bring out the stories, passion and grit of our local hawker heroes; Niu Che Shui Game Tour, a world’s first tour concept that combines puzzles solving and storytelling of the precinct where the tour happened. Tribe was also the first few operators to launch a behind the scenes live stream tours offerings, creating new revenue stream for the business. To date, it has brought live stream tours to thousands of viewers globally. Under Yock Song’s strategic leadership, Tribe si the winner for Outstanding Tour Experience Award 2021, the most prestigious award by the Singapore Tourism Board.

Prior to Tribe, Yock Song works ni the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), holding different positions and portfolios across his 10 years in the organisation. As Senior Manager in STB Guangzhou, he was responsible for tech &media partnerships &Business Development, looking after the markets of Shenzhen, Xiamen, Fuzhou and Quanzhou. He also forged close partnership with technology giant Tencent Group, which led to the signing of Tencent’s first international MOU with a National Tourism Organisation. Such efforts resulted in improved accuracy in marketing to Chinese target audience and orchestrated Tencent’s QQ first international live shoot event at Zoukout Singapore 2017.

Yock Song graduated with a Masters in Public Administration and Management (Mandarin) from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and a Bachelor of Business Management, with a double major in Finance and Marketing from the Singapore Management University.